1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a duct, and more particularly, to a combined illumination and ventilation duct. Although the present invention is suitable for a wide scope of applications, it is particularly suitable for illuminating and ventilating an indoor space.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, various ventilators for indoor space ventilation and various illuminators for providing predetermined intensity of illumination to an indoor space are installed in houses, large buildings and factory facilities.
A ventilator consists of a duct on a ceiling of an indoor space to form a moving passage of air and a fan module sucking/blowing air into/from the duct. And, the ventilator may further consist of an electric heat exchanger to recover thermal energy contained in indoor air in part.
Meanwhile, the illuminator consists of various lamps electrically connected to various wires to artificially illuminate the indoor space. Recently, a predetermined intensity of illumination can be provided to an indoor and/or outdoor space using an optical pipe. The optical pipe enables total reflection of light generated from a lamp, thereby being advantageous in aspect of light loss on propagation.
However, the related art illuminator and ventilator have the following problems.
First of all, since a space for the related art illuminator and a space for the related art ventilator are separately provided to an indoor space, sufficient spaces are needed to accommodate various devices. And, wiring becomes very complicated. Moreover, in case of installing an illuminator having an optical pipe, a duct needs to be separate from the optical pipe to be arranged on a ceiling. So, an installation space increases and the installation and design become more complicated.
Secondly, an optical pipe and duct need to be arranged on optimal positions for illumination and ventilation, respectively. For this, if the positions are overlapped with each other, either illumination efficiency or ventilation efficiency has to be reduced.